XR Stories welcomes first immersive lab residents

XR Stories has welcomed extended reality (XR) developer and founder of Real Time Stories, Olivia Kitteridge, and her project team as the first residents in its immersive technology lab. 

During the five-day residency, Olivia and team used XR Stories’ facilities and state-of the art technology as their own, incubating ideas and undertaking productive research and development to progress a proof of concept for an immersive VR experience. 

Olivia’s original objective for the residency was to create a short VR experience to introduce the storyworld for a longer immersive experience called ‘Tech Support’.

The idea of Olivia and writer, Joe Willis, Tech Support presents a world where malfunctioning technology is required to attend sessions with AI therapists. The audience is guided through their day by an AI mentor – Sammy – played by actor, Dylan Silke-Browne.

Taking the form of a satirical comedy, the experience places the audience in the role of a therapist in their first day on the job, diagnosing the different tech that arrives in the office, guided through their day by the AI mentor. 

With time to focus and guidance from XR Stories, Olivia adapted her original residency plan and returned to an earlier conception of Tech support as a live experience – with the actor in the same physical space as the user. 

Olivia, Joe and Dylan used the remaining residency time to refine this idea, building a new virtual environment using Unreal Engine and working with XR Stories to experiment with mocap technology including hand and gesture recognition, facial rigging and mixed reality. 

The residency provided Olivia and Joe with the time, space and technology to revisit their original creative vision. 

“The XR Stories residency has been like a creative oasis! After what feels like months in the wilderness, it’s great to have the facilities and expertise to revisit the original aims for our project with a new perspective, and to undertake productive research and development to develop the experience.” says Olivia.  

Olivia and Joe plan to use the proof of concept developed during their time at XR Stories to apply for a place at the Immersive Fiction Lab, a talent development programme for creatives exploring humour in VR to evolve their projects ready to seek finance. 

Visit the XR Stories contacts page to subscribe for updates about future residency programmes.

Published on 18 September 2024